


Finally

by jumpsoap



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Blindfolds, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-09 00:26:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17396627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jumpsoap/pseuds/jumpsoap
Summary: Just a cute little getting-together fic for Abemiha. Written forAciefor theOofuri X-mas 2018 exchange!





	Finally

Mihashi was cowering again, and this wasn’t the time to berate him for it. On the other side of the thin dugout wall, their teammates were wondering aloud where their pitcher was. The clock was ticking until the next inning would start.

Abe shut his eyes and counted to five. For once, he didn’t even feel angry. He felt guilty. He opened his eyes and took Mihashi’s cold hand. “I know you’re scared,” he said, looking down at their joined hands.

“No, I’m not scared, I want to pl--” 

“I know you’re scared of me.” 

Mihashi didn’t respond, dropping his head.

“It’s okay,” Abe said, covering Mihashi’s hand and rubbing warmth into it. He stepped closer, and Mihashi’s breath hitched.

His cheeks were flushed, eyes wide. A rush of warmth bloomed against Abe’s palm.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Mihashi said in a rush.

Meeting his gaze, Abe felt a strange sense of peace and confidence wash away whatever else he had been feeling. He lifted a hand and brushed his fingertips across Mihashi’s cheek, exploring the blushing skin without thinking about it.

Mihashi’s eyes fell closed, then snapped open. He pulled away, but Abe hung on to his hand until a shout came from behind him. They had been found, and they leapt apart, running back to the field to resume the game.

Afterward, Abe thought he would be able to pull Mihashi aside again, but he made a mumbled excuse and left with his mother as soon as they had wrapped up their debrief and cool-down.

Mizutani fell into step with Abe as they returned to the bus. “Did you say something weird to Mihashi when you ran off in the middle of the game?” 

Abe followed his gaze, toward where the smaller vehicles were parked, their pitcher climbing into one of them. “No,” he said. “He said something weird to me…” 

“Huh?”

“I just don’t understand him,” Abe said, suddenly feeling frustrated. “Why doesn’t he trust me like I trust him?”

Mizutani laughed, then cut himself off, mouth snapping shut when Abe glared at him.

“What?” Abe demanded.

“You don’t!” Mizutani said. “You don’t trust him. You’re always micromanaging him and yelling at him and bossing him around.”

“That’s not…” Not what? Not distrust? He knew he wanted to deny what he was hearing, but, somehow, he couldn’t think of any reason it wasn’t true.

Mizutani shrugged. “Do what you gotta do, man, but don’t lie.” 

Abe played the encounter with Mihashi over again in his mind as he rode back home. “ _I’m not afraid of you_ ,” Mihashi had said. Now, how exactly had he said it? Abe wished he’d had a video camera, like when they taped games to review later.

Was that… _I’m not afraid of_ you? That would make sense-- Mihashi was afraid of a lot of things, after all.

Or was it defiant, as in _I’m_ not __ _afraid of you_? Unlikely… but possible.

Maybe Mihashi had just been trying to make him feel better, and there was no particular emphasis, just a halfhearted denial. 

Or... Maybe what Mihashi had said was, _I’m not_ afraid __ _of you_. 

Abe thought back to the pitcher’s demeanor: hand cold ( _he was afraid, right?_ ), face red ( _it was hot today, after all_ ), eyes wide with large, dark pupils… lips wet... 

No, he had to have been imagining that last part.

He stewed over it until, finally, he managed to linger behind after a study session at the Mihashi house. Alone with Mihashi for the first time since that strange conversation. 

Abe sat on the _genkan_ step, shoes on but unlaced, watching Mihashi’s back as he waved goodbye to their other friends. 

Mihashi turned and jumped, clearly startled to see Abe there. 

“Mihashi,” Abe said, starting off strong but feeling his resolve weaken. He cleared his throat. “I mean. Ren. We should… use given names.” 

Mihashi’s mouth opened and closed. Beyond his bug-eyed nervousness, his expression was completely unreadable. As always. Was there anything even going on in there? Had he forgotten Abe’s given name?

“Takaya,” Mihashi got out eventually, then dipped his head as his face reddened.

“Yeah, like that,” Abe said. He looked down at his shoes, laces laying across the ground. “We’re… friends. Look. You think I don’t trust you.” There was no response from above, and Abe pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, throat closing up. “I do trust you. I trust you to throw the pitches I sign, and do what I say, and, and…” To his horror, his shoes were blurring in front of him, tears stinging his eyes.

Mihashi touched his shoulder, and Abe looked up at him, meeting his shocked gaze for just a moment before diving back down to hastily tie up his shoelaces, fingers clumsy and shaking.

“Um, I’m, uh…” 

“What?” Abe demanded, standing up.

Mihashi wilted away, closing his eyes and shaking his head.

Abe grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “What is it? Spit it out!” 

Mihashi still didn’t say anything and Abe sighed, loosening his grip.

“Don’t… cry,” Mihashi stammered eventually.

“I’m sorry.” Abe turned away, wiping his eyes.

“I-I-I mean, I don’t… like… this.” 

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Abe said, sniffing.

“That’s not what I mean! I always say the wrong thing,” he finished in a whisper.

Abe turned back to face him. Mihashi had sat down on the step, arms around his knees, head down.

“I don’t know how to tell you how I feel. And… I shouldn’t.” 

“How you feel?” 

No response but another shake of the head. Abe knelt in front of him. His heart was pounding in his chest. He wished he could draw on some of that confidence and peace he had felt behind the dugout that day. It seemed like months ago. Now, he felt as though he were out in a strange city at night, with no idea of how he had gotten there or of where to go.

He took a breath and said, “Then don’t tell me. S-show me.” 

Mihashi looked up and Abe touched his cheek again. It felt just as warm as it had the day of the game. 

“Close your eyes,” he said, “And show me how you feel.”

Mihashi was looking anywhere but at Abe’s face, eyes open and flickering back and forth.

Abe gritted his teeth, but didn’t say anything. He looked around and saw the tie from Mihashi’s uniform lying among the shoes. He picked it up and turned back to Mihashi. “Close your eyes,” he repeated. “Don’t you trust me?”

Mihashi closed his eyes, and Abe wrapped the tie around his eyes as a blindfold. Mihashi flinched when he laid the fabric across his closed eyes, but seemed to relax when the blindfold was tied.

“Abe… Takaya,” Mihashi said. “Is it really okay?”

“It’s okay,” Abe reassured him, although he wasn’t quite sure what he was reassuring him of.

Mihashi reached forward and his hands waved toward Abe’s face until they came to rest on his cheeks. He touched his face for a moment, tenderly, but then flinched back.

“What’s wrong?” Abe said.

“I-I can’t,” Mihashi said in a strangled voice.

Abe gritted his teeth and grabbed Mihashi by his wrists. He took a slow breath and sighed it out. “It’s okay,” Abe repeated. “Ren… I’ll show you…”

“A- Takaya… Um…”

“Don’t say anything,” Abe said, more to himself than to Mihashi. 

Mihashi’s breath shuddered, and Abe licked his own dry lips as he leaned toward Mihashi, parting his knees with one of his own. He kissed him, he kissed Mihashi, _finally_ , the thought bubbled up out of nowhere as he pressed his lips to Mihashi’s, trying desperately to communicate something to Mihashi that he couldn’t quite articulate to himself.

He pulled back, lips tingling, and saw that Mihashi had pulled up the blindfold and was staring at him. 

“Um…” Abe said, the silence oppressive. 

Over the next few moments, Mihashi’s face became an impossibly deep shade of red. He looked mortified.

Abe jumped back and grabbed his bag, hand sweating and slipping against the strap. “I’m… I should go. I’ll… see you… um, Mihashi.”

“Why…” Mihashi murmured behind him.

Abe closed his eyes. “I thought… I thought that’s what you wanted. I’m sorry. Just forget it.”

In the days that followed, Mihashi pulled further and further away from Abe, shrinking from him at breaks and hardly looking at him when practicing pitching. 

Abe knew he wasn’t helping, fixing his gaze on Mihashi’s ear when he had no choice but to address and look at him. His stomach churned when he looked at him, guilt and shame and confusion.

He was so sure that he hadn’t been wrong. He was at the end of his rope, and sought out the last person he wanted to talk to about any of this.

He sat down at the little rickety table in the kitchen and clenched his fists in his lap. “Father,” he said, “I need your advice.”

Abe the senior looked up from the television and crossed his arms. “So, the great Takaya humbles himself to me,” he said. “I am honored.”

Takaya fiddled with the hem of his shirt, searching for the words.

“I’m not a mind reader,” his father said. “What’s this about? A girl?”

“Well,” Takaya said, scratching his face, “Yeah, I guess.”

“So?”

“So, there’s this girl, and she likes me, and she thinks I don’t like her. What should I do?”

His father drummed his fingers on the table. “How do you know she likes you?”

“She-she just… I know.” It sounded so stupid when he said it like that.

“Why does she think you don’t like her?”

Abe groaned. “I don’t know! I guess it’s because… she doesn’t like herself, and she gets worried and imagines that other people don’t like her, either.”

“I see. Have you tried telling this girl that you like her?”

“Yeah! Basically.”

“Well, do you like her?”

Abe didn’t say anything, and kept his eyes on the table. 

His father snorted. “How do you expect this person to know your feelings when you don’t even know them?”

“Wh… why does it matter how I feel? I just want him to be happy! I mean, her.” 

Abe’s father shook his head. “You need to sort yourself out before you start speculating about other people’s feelings. You’re gonna hurt this ‘girl’ if you don’t.” 

_What does he know?_ Abe thought to himself. He was sitting in the dugout, watching Mihashi practice throwing to Tajima, some of their batters facing off against them. At first, he was looking without even focusing, but soon he found himself really watching.

He knew Mihashi was good, but watching him from out here… He was _good_. And Tajima was good, too. The two of them consulted frequently, and Mihashi shook his head at several signs. 

Those pitches, Abe noticed, weren’t hit once. 

He took up his gear and joined the practice again, a lot on his mind.

After practice was over and the rest of the team was splitting, Abe grabbed Mihashi’s arm. “Ren.”

Mihashi jumped and pulled away as though he’d been burned. 

Abe let him slip away. “Listen,” he said, forcing himself to look Mihashi in the face. “Can we talk? Alone?”

For a moment, he thought Mihashi would refuse and run off, but to his surprise, he nodded. 

Somehow, Abe convinced him to come home with him. There was no one else home, the silence and stillness oppressive as Mihashi followed him upstairs.

He had a moment of chagrin as they went into his room--he’d forgotten how messy he’d left it. Mihashi looked around but didn’t comment.

The door clicked shut and Abe paused for a moment with his hand on the doorknob.

“Your pitching today… was really good,” he said.

Mihashi made a noise. “We… got hit.”

Abe shook his head. “Our batters are good, but you were great. You’re a great pitcher, Ren.”

“Tajima- _kun_ was--” 

“No,” Abe said. “Tajima is fine, but you were great. You shook your head at the right times. And… and if I had been your catcher, and treated you like I should have been treating you all along, we wouldn’t have gotten hit. We would have worked together like a real battery. I should have been there for you. I shouldn’t have driven you away. I’m sorry, Ren.” 

“D-driven me away? What?”

Abe took a deep breath and let it out as he dropped to his knees in front of Mihashi. “You’re a great pitcher,” he said fiercely. “I see that now. But I wish you’d let me take care of you again.”

“You… don’t have to.”

“It’s what I want!” Abe insisted. “I want you, Ren. I want you to look at me like I’m important, I want you to like me, I want you to… to kiss me, because I like you.” He picked up his tie from where he’d left it, purposefully, by the door. Looking up at Mihashi one last time, he tied it over his own eyes. “Let me show you how I feel. I trust you.”

The seconds dripped by in the sound of a leaky faucet somewhere in the house. Abe heard the the television running downstairs, muffled by distance. It was quiet, he should have been tense, but he felt… peaceful. He waited patiently, hands on his knees.

Finally, he felt the floor creak as Mihashi moved, and then he was being kissed, wildly, fervently. Abe wrapped his arms around Mihashi’s waist and pulled him into his lap as they collapsed against the door.

Finally. _Finally_. 


End file.
